


Wait for the Sunrise (The Quantum Entanglement Remix)

by kristin



Category: Firefly
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Post-Serenity, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristin/pseuds/kristin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the 'verse, River has a conversation with Schrödinger's cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wait for the Sunrise (The Quantum Entanglement Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Strength of the World](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3083) by escritoireazul. 



> Title is a lyric from CATS because I think I am funny. Thanks to J for the beta and L for the reassurance.

“Hello cat,” says River in her outside voice, the one that is made up of sound waves and language, not thoughts and patterns and needles under skin.

It jumps up into her arms and greets her, green eyes wide as it presses its nose to hers. Soft and silky and graceful like dance all covering up muscles and scrappy survival and scars.

Oh, she likes this cat.

“Shall we get some breakfast then?” River asks it with poise and grace, all smooth vowels and Core manners. Some things are instinctive when greeting such a lofty guest.

Last guest, she knows. Or maybe that is just a fear. River is trying to keep the two separate, what could be and what is, but the thought has a ring of truth. Final.

Who else could they invite on board Serenity now that verse has fallen so silent? No planets, not even in the Core, are untouched now.

River will not, does not, think about the parts that are still screaming, the horror of gnawed bodies, still barely alive, and of the few intact left cowering, hiding behind ineffectual levees which will not keep the ocean of Reavers out.

A flash of fur goes by her eye as the cat bops her nose with its paw. “Thank you,” she says, manners and thoughts back in the right place. It winds itself up around her neck, perching on her shoulder.

“I think I shall call you Cat,” River whispers. She waits for a moment, silent as she carries it down the corridor, but it doesn't object. Called what it is, all aligned straight and clear. They enter the galley.

“Wait here,” she says as she bends down at the waist til her shoulder is level with the table. “If you will,” she adds, and it saunters off her. Cats seldom stay unless you give them the option not to.

River gathers their food quickly ( _Never keep a guest waiting,_ says her mother's voice in her head) and returns to the table where the cat sits like the proverbial king/queen/court jester it is.

Not too much food, for her or Cat. Just the same as there would have been only now just half, split as her share is between them. It wouldn't, couldn't do to steal from one of the others, no, River don't, no matter your hunger.

River really hadn't been planning on taking more than her share, not when hunger was broadcasting from the rest of the crew so loud it made her stomach grumble. But that is memory, not her.

Most of the time River is just River, only one girl, but sometimes she slips.

Less now than before.

Simon thinks the change is all due to closure. To finding Miranda and broadcasting the signal through the verse, bad memory lanced, drained and cleansed. Mal thinks it is purpose, the responsibilities of flying and the love of Serenity.

Zoe, she thinks, knows the truth. It's easier to block out voices when there are so few, and the ones that still remain are known well.

River bites into her food and chews more than is needed, gnashing out thoughts from her head and grinding them to dust with her teeth. She eats up all her half as Cat watches.

It doesn't take a bite.

“You shouldn't be here,” she says, though she isn't quite sure if that is right.

The cat just looks at her, eyes wide and disdainful. It tilts its head, so she does too. River considers the matter more, not wanting to disappoint Cat. “But maybe you aren't. Alive or dead or both is the question, isn't it?”

Cat purrs and she knows that the question is the answer, or at least the right direction to send her thoughts flying in.

“This isn't a box. Not even Schrödinger's.” She doesn't lie and deny Reavers are deadly radiation.

If she had been talking to Kaylee, Simon, Jayne, Mal, then she would have bothered to explain why that matters. Zoe would know what River means. She sees the cat.

“This isn't a box,” River repeats. Because she isn't. Serenity is ship, home, family, beloved. She is ever moving and yet always the same when it comes to those things.

Serenity isn't a box, but thinking bigger—

River stares at the cat and the cat stares back. Thoughts pour through her head, quick/fast/impossible, out through the verse, through the Reavers and masses of bodies-turned-debris, tethered to her body only by Serenity.

All the while the cat watches.

River stops, breathes slowly. Zoe is there now, witness to the battle of wits. River would laugh at that thought but she knows now what she has to do.

“I have a plan,” she whispers. (Cat already knows.) “Help me, Zoe.”

Zoe nods and River leaps out of her seat, impatient. She grabs Zoe's hand and begins walking, walking, why is it so slow, this should happen now, please and thank you—

River stops, calms, thinks. There will be time. This will make time.

Zoe's hand is warm. River knows she could break every bone in it without thinking, for all it feels so strong in hers. Force applied to violence comes easy. But that isn't the task. Zoe is already broken, or almost.

Cracked.

River can see it now, especially as she sits down in Wash's seat. She says a prayer for him, acknowledges his plastic dinosaur guardians. He died with hope and poetry.

River wishes, selfish, he had lived to see his universe end.

Zoe asks her what she wants, and River doesn't mention Wash, or that she wants to fix Zoe, fix the verse, make Simon smile, because now, this moment, there is something more important.

“I can find us a home,” says River, because she can.

Can take them beyond Miranda, Reavers, and the verse they know. Can get them out of the box. She tries to explain as her fingers and thoughts fly swift as a firefly, the Firefly, charting their new course.

Zoe's voice cuts through her planning. “You should get the Captain.”

“We should surprise him. He wouldn't understand,” says River, knowing Zoe would. Mal, their stubborn captain, still doesn't admit defeat to a government now fallen and devoured. He wouldn't leave the verse, not while the possibility of life remains.

But Zoe, she would.

Will, even though Zoe's thoughts are all fears and _blond hair coated in blood, body desecrated_ and _can't go back_ pouring into River's head.

“I know,” she says, stemming the flow. See, there, they stopped and River is River again.

“Alright,” Zoe says and River hears Cat purring.

Hears the hum of it louder and louder ringing up through her bones and expanding outwards, out of her body, ship, universe. She feels it, sees it. Not past/present/others but future.

“Waters flow uphill sometimes; rivers change course. Destruction doesn't always mean the end,” she says, trying to turn vision to words. River turns her head and sees it as Zoe straightens her shoulders up, unbroken, or at least mended by purpose, by chance of a future.

The cat is alive and escaping.


End file.
